Costa to spend £36m on new roastery

Costa, the high street coffee shop chain, is to build a new roastery in a £36m investment to support its national and international growth ambitions.

The roastery will open in 2017 in Basildon, Essex and will operate with Costa’s existing roastery in Lambeth, south-west London, which already roasts coffee 24 hours a day, five days a week. The Basildon site will help meet demand in 2020 and beyond – the roastery will have the capacity to produce 45,000 tonnes, while the Lambeth site can produce just 11,000 tonnes.

Christopher Rogers, managing director, said: “Costa is growing and, to meet strong customer demand, we need to increase our coffee roasting capacity. Our existing Lambeth site does not have the long-term roasting capacity to cater for our increasing UK and international demand. The solution is to build a second roastery in the London area, which will continue to produce the high-quality coffee our customers love in the quantity the business requires.”

Gennaro Pelliccia, master of coffee at Costa, said: “My job is to oversee the roasting process and, most importantly, ensure Costa’s Mocha Italia and Old Paradise Street blends retain the same great taste as the Costa brothers’ coffee, first produced in 1971.

“The quality of our beans gives our coffee the unique flavour – setting us apart from the competition and making us the UK’s favourite coffee shop. We are immensely proud of our coffee and our heritage, which is why we have worked so hard to ensure our new roastery will continue to meet our high standards.”

For its full-year results, Costa announced a 17.9% lift in sales and a new growth target – boosting Costa system sales from £1.4bn in 2014/15 to £2.5bn in 2020.